Mrs Adaku Chidume-Okoro, Group Managing Director, Gum Arabic Company Nigeria (GACON), has appealed to the Federal Government to scale up efforts in encouraging non-oil export activities.

Chidume-Okoro made the appeal at the two-day national conference on non-oil export, organized by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC).

The conference is with the theme; “Export for Survival: Optimising Nigeria’s Non-Oil Export Potential’’.

Chidume-Okoro, in her discussion on “Emerging Issues Disrupting Nigeria’s Non-Oil Exports and Innovative Solutions’’, urged the Federal Government to look beyond dependence on crude oil as a major income earner for Nigeria.

According to her, to optimise the full potential in the non-oil export sector, the government and stakeholders must begin to identify the emerging issues disrupting the sector.

She listed the war in Ukraine, food safety and traceability issues, organic foods, certifications, the digital world and COVID-19 impact as some of the global factors disrupting the activities of the non-oil sector.

“On the other hand, weakening of the Naira is a major domestic factor adversely affecting Nigeria’s non-oil export sector.

“No doubt, these disruptive events both at the global and domestic levels have unsettled the status quo in the traditional Nigerian non-oil export sector.

“A good strategist sees great opportunities in disruptions.

It is a time to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions that will skyrocket the Nigerian non-oil export to an all-time high performance.

“This can be achieved by harnessing opportunities so thrown up by the disruptions.

“Unless this is done, the sector will be critically hit in the face of apparent challenges thrown up by the disruptions,’’ she said.

While examining the present situation in Nigeria’s non-oil export sector, Chidume-Okoro said that the turnaround time of 30 days minimum was too long for containerised agro products.

She advocated that intervention and checks by about 10 governmental agencies could be streamlined, noting that the long rigmarole is killing export.

Chidume-Okoro also solicited the federal government’s intervention on international trade barriers.

“For example, gum arabic from Sudan and Chad are duty exempt in China and India, whereas same product from Nigeria is under heavy duty.

“This makes Nigerian gum arabic unattractive to China and India markets. Our government will need to intervene in this matter by discussing with the governments of India and China,’’ she said.

She, however, said that more support to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) would serve as an innovative solution that would enhance non-oil export growth.

According to her, SMEs are catalysts for the desired non-oil export boom and they should be encouraged.

“Recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) incentives tend to support and encourage mainly the big players in the Industry.

“Government should go out of its way to encourage non-oil export activities that guarantee job security and boost employment for the bottom of pyramid members of the value chain.

“Government must also de-emphasize mechanization that results in job loss,’’ she said.

Chidume-Okoro called for the provision of separate terminals for exports equipped with transit commodities handling warehouses as different from that of imports.

In addition, she called for improved access to the shipping terminal by road as well as the application of technology in the non-oil export value chain.

She further tasked NEPC and CBN to introduce incentive products that would make available to non–oil export SMEs non-collateralized, single-digit interest loans for their working capital.